Energycoin, the Power-Saving Crypto-currency, Ends IPO

Energycoin, the ‘energy-saving’ crypto-currency that focuses on saving energy in digital currency transactions, put on a successful launch this week, distributing free shares to over 800 stakeholders in its IPO that ended Wednesday.

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Energycoin, the ‘energy-saving’ crypto-currency that focuses on saving energy in digital currency transactions, put on a successful launch this week, distributing free shares to over 800 stakeholders in its IPO that ended Wednesday.

110 million coins have been initially distributed equally (125,000 each) between participating members of BitcoinTalk, the main Bitcoin discussion forum, in what some observers called “a fair distribution. . . with a huge backing.”

To see the full list of contributors/stakeholders to the IPO, click here.

The crypto-currency is a POS (proof of stake) coin, an alternative to “proof of work” digital currencies like Bitcoin. POS provides a mechanism for determining who signs Bitcoin transactions, but minus the intensive hashing work. Energycoin itself claims to save energy on crypto-currency transactions while simultaneously providing the fastest transactions (within one minute) between digital currency users.

“While the coin saves energy by not doing any kind of intensive hashing work, it uses small computers’ power to generate annual interests for users holding coins while confirming the transactions over [the] network,” according to a description posted on Energycoin’s website.

Energycoin does not offer block rewards like Bitcoin for mining work; instead, holding on to the currency mints new coins, as a way to avoid the intensive race that now dominates Bitcoin mining.

It’s worth noting that Energycoin is different from Energy Coin, an asset-backed crypto-currency pitched by entrepreneurs Daniel Hadjittofi and Nikos Bentenitis (one Cypriot, one American) in an interview with CyprusMail last month. The latter Energy Coin would rely on hydrocarbons: the founders proposed that either a country’s central government or one of its sub-agencies issue Energy Coins to pre-sell natural gas reserves.